Training to be a Sparky

bigangus

Hi Guys and Galls
just wondered if anybody has done one of those training courses (Plumbing, Joinery and Electrition). where you do 80 hour blocks of remote learning and then a weeks practical work.You have to pay about £6000 for the course if you can, or get a Career Development Loan from a bank but the Gov. must have some controll in this as you pay back your loan at a lot less than a bank would normally charge.
BigAngus

tux130582

one thing about training to be an electrician, its difficult to get a job without any onsite experience even if you do one of the courses, and also to become a qualified electrician part of your NVQ is being on site and doing a site diary, the course will just be the theory and only the 1st parts of the qualification. making you a "electrical improver" or "electricians mate"

try looking at www.jtlimited.co.uk

and www.jib.co.uk for the job titles and the qualifications needed

Gettin_me_own_back

Years ago these sort of jobs could only be learnt via an apprentership i.e on the job training, backed up with a college course, over 2/3 years.

Taking an 80 hour block learning course would not make you an electrician or a plummer. 6k down the drain. If you want to retrain approach your local college and or and a tradesman in the field. Offer to work weekends for nothing, at least you will get some experiance.

MissG_2

Thought i would throw my two pennies worth into this one.

My OH has just recently completed a tech cert in plumbing, the year previous he done a NVQ lvl 2 in gas service and install.

Both courses took an acedemic year, were completed through a recognised college and he has struggled to find any sort of permanent work from it. He has passed his gas tickets or ACS assesments (required for corgi reg) and he still cannot find work.

He doesnt want to go out alone due to confidence and preferred to gain some experiance first but nobody wants to look at him due to his lack of exp.

His opinion is there will only be one winner and that is the guys taking £6k of you for a lot of intensive learning. These are best suited to people who kow people within the industry and can give you a good chunk of real life exp whilst training.

Do not expect what a lot of they promise a quick life to riches because unless you touch lucky you will find it hard to make your £6k back let alone make a half decent wage.

If you want to learn this sort of thing it is much better to do it over a year or 2 as it allows you to absorb what is being taught coupled with some real life experience will ensure you are a decent tradesmen.

Hope this advice helps sum 1.

bigturnip

£6,000 for 80 hours remote learning and a weeks practical work seems astronomically expensive to me, but then maybe that's just meant to give you some encouragement for when you start work. :rotfl:

kdean

My husband is looking into this and I think it is in fact (for the course he is looking at) about 4 weeks practical. I think you do it in 4 blocks of 80 hours theory and 5 days practical. They also promise to either help you set yourself up when you are finished or get you a contract job whichever you want. My husband is currently a printer and needs to get out of the business because it is the only trade that I know of that are actually taking a lot less money than they did 10 years ago. For the £6k course they say that you are fully qualified, not an electricians mate and not an electrical improver. The quickest that you could expect to do this course (so they say) is about 6 months but there is no time limit and most people do it in about 1 to 1 1/2 years. I don't know of another way to get into a trade if you have a family and cannot afford to take a drastic pay cut for the next 5 years.

Dime_Bar

Have you though of something like a British Gas Traineeship, it is like an apperticeship but aimed at career changes and is pretty much all work based.

Have a look here

mna78

Newly registered, first post so hi everyone!

I looked quite a bit into retraining as an electrician or plumber towards the end of last year as my job within Finance although well paid was causing depression. My conclusion was even if I paid £4k odd for a course I'd still probably have to start out as a "mate" to gain some real world experiance.

I contacted a lot of local tradesmen explaining that I wanted a junior trainee role, but had no luck.

So I opted to do a 4 week Handyman course at a cost of £1200, it's more "general building", course (covers Carpentry, Plumbing, Plastering & Tiling) than becoming a sparky or plumber, the day rate that you can charge is better than a "mate" and is also a general step into the industry.

I'm still doing the course, but so far it has been very good and the outlook at getting work seems positive.

ultraskinflint

I did a 6wk training course last nov with technique training, although i passed all the exams i don't think you could go out and earn a living straight away, practical work was limited and not in anyway good enough, just working on chip board with holes already cut. My feeling was that most people thought it would be easy to get a job with someone after but unless you have friend/family in the game you have very little chance. There were 30 people in our group with 1 tutor who was stretched at all times so if you got stuck or didn't understand anything you got left back. most on the course thought it was poor. the two guys that own it thinks it a good game tho!!